Glasgow 2014: Judo veteran John Buchanan admits chance to represent Scotland at home Games coaxed him out of retirement

BUCHANAN, 38, retired from the sport 12 yeas ago but says the lure of competing on home soil was too strong to resist.

IT’S more than a decade since John Buchanan quit judo and 12 years since he last competed at a major Games.

But he’s quite the philosopher and like Archimedes, he had a Eureka moment during his comeback tournament at Crystal Palace last year.

The 38 year-old went to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 with Team GB then won a World Championship bronze in Munich in 2001 before representing Scotland at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester – where he failed to win a single fight.

Two years later Buchanan retired to teach judo – he and wife Clare run nine Sportif Judo clubs – but the Broxburn man admits the lure of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow drove him to think again.

That and the fact that he won a bronze at Crystal Palace after locking himself in a toilet cubicle to figure out what he’d got himself into.

Buchanan said: “I was thinking of coming back around the time of the London Olympics but it would have meant six weeks in Japan and I would have been at the beck and call of the British Judo Association. I have three kids so it wouldn’t have been easy.

“But at a home Games, the qualifying process is nowhere near as stringent.

“Judo Scotland and the Team Scotland guys have been a lot more flexible, which made it more achievable.

“The kids will be there to see me. They’ve only seen me fight once – in that tournament a year ago after coming out of retirement. I only fought in it for a laugh because I had taken the team of kids that we have to Crystal Palace. There were 14 of them and 13 fought on the Saturday and one of the girls fought on the Sunday.

“So I said to her, ‘Look, I’ll fight on the Sunday, so you’re not on your own’. In the back of my mind I was thinking ‘If this goes well, I could end up on the Commonwealth Games team’.

“I came third – I lost to a guy in the British team then I beat him for bronze.

“I’d pulled my hamstring and couldn’t do half the stuff I wanted to do. It was a real eye-opener – in the first contest I’d had in 10 years I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

“I was actually in the toilet after pulling my hamstring and I was thinking ‘How can I get out of this?’ But my wife, our kids, and everyone from the club were there and when I had my first fight I could hear my kids shouting ‘Come on daddy’ – it was really cute.

“I was in the toilet thinking ‘This is a lot harder than I remember it’. Then I heard them calling my name, saying I had two minutes to report to the mat.

“I thought ‘It’s too late – I can’t get out of it’.

“So I had to go straight on to the mat and the difference between my second fight and my first was night and day.

“In my second fight I thought ‘Oh, I remember this. It’s not as bad as it was’. I reckon if I’d left my comeback any later, I wouldn’t have made the team.

“In hindsight, I wish I’d started a wee bit earlier. I’ve only really been competing properly for six months.

“I’ve never felt like I’d had enough of judo. I teach it for a living. I still love the sport, so after the Olympics, especially with the Commonwealth Games being in Scotland, I was inspired to take up competing again.

“You normally represent Team GB, so to be part of Team Scotland at a home Games is just massive.

“That was my motivation, the fact it’s in Scotland. If it was in Australia or somewhere else I wouldn’t have done it.”

Team Scotland judo athlete John Buchanan

Buchanan admits it took him a year to decide to retire after he realised his nemesis Craig Fallon would always get the nod over him for selection in his weight category for major tournaments despite the fact he’d only lost to him twice.

He said: “Craig Fallon had become world champion and you could only take one person per weight to most events – now you can take two – so I was his understudy. He beat me twice but he only just beat me. If he was smashing me out of the park it would have been a lot easier to accept I couldn’t catch him up.

“That’s why it took me a year to decide to retire because judo had been a massive part of my life since I was nine.”

Despite the crushing disappointment of Manchester, Buchanan is typically optimistic about his chances of winning in Glasgow.

But he said: “It’s not unfinished business. I’m kind of savouring it a bit more now.

“I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do in the sport – I’ve represented Britain at the Olympic Games and World Championships.

“Yeah, I can medal. I definitely can. My main issue is that I’m 38 and every tournament I’ve gone into I’ve been carrying some kind of injury.

“If I make it to the start line in one piece, then I think I have a really good chance of getting a medal.

“In the Manchester Games I was one of the favourites to do well because I was a world medallist.

“However, I didn’t win a single fight there so let’s face it, I can’t do any worse this time.”